2

Abit

 

 

“Whoa! Stop! You almost backed into the band saw I’m running over here. Dangerously close to being like the butcher who backed into his meat grinder and got a little behind in his work.”

That was Shiloh. I’d hired him because, well, I was a little behind in my work. And he made some of the prettiest dovetail joints I’d ever seen. We’d met at The Hicks, or the Hickson School of American Studies in Boone, N.C. After my jaunt through the Virginia mountains to find con artists who’d messed with me and the school, I went back there to learn more about woodworking and wood carving. Two year ago, I moved home to Laurel Falls and set up my woodshop in a corner of the family barn. Next door to Della Kincaid, right where I wanted to be.

Della had seen somethin’ in me no one else ever had, and I didn’t want to venture too far from that. And she’d brainstorm with me sometimes when I was designing new furniture. So would Alex, her ex-husband and now boyfriend, when he wasn’t in D.C. or somewhere covering a news story.

Even though my woodshop stood in the shadow of my parents’ house, I liked working there. I’d taken out the dividing wall between two stalls so I had a good-sized space for making large pieces of furniture. The walls were mostly logs and chinking, but I covered one in rough-cut pine that gave me space to organize tools and such. I added a strong floor so I had a sturdy place to set all them power tools.

At first, when I started building furniture, I didn’t know what to make. But then I recalled the things that stirred me the first time I saw them—like that sideboard at Ila Pittman’s while I was traipsing through Virginia. Or the dining table at Alex’s. And hoosiers had always been a favorite. Ever since I was a kid, I’d watched Mama crank the sifter handle under the built-in flour bin to make it snow into her bowl. Hoosiers also have a pull-out countertop for more room to pat out biscuits and a large cabinet below for storage. All them nooks and crannies gave me places to add special touches. Mostly carvings on the legs or at the top, but sometimes I’d chisel out a place for ceramic or enameled inlays from local artists. As more tourists and second home people came to live nearby, my business was on the rise.

Shiloh, aka Bob Greene, had a religious conversion of sorts while at The Hicks. He hooked up with some of the Buddhists who came there every summer, but unlike their serious devotion, he seemed to cherry-pick whatever suited him. He changed his appearance by dressing only in loose clothing, mostly black hippie pants and black T-shirts, and growing a long wispy mustache that gave him the air of a magician. That impression grew stronger when, after a meditation break, he’d slip into the woodshop without me knowing it.

Shiloh seemed to have specially taken to the notion of the laughing Buddha; he liked nothin’ better than telling jokes. His repertoire was growing, though he repeated his jokes a lot, or at least I heard them over and over when different folks came into the shop. Even so, some of them made me laugh every time. Some of them.

I needed a break, so I headed over to Della’s. I dusted off my overalls (I used to worry they made me look like a hillbilly, but they were the best thing for the kind of work I did); whistled for my dog, Millie, a black-and-white fiest who took up with me in Virginia; and walked down the mossy steps to the store. It was a blustery day for May; I figured a rain storm was on the way. When I opened the front door, a gust of wind snuck in behind me and blew some papers onto the floor. I picked them up and couldn’t help but read the top one.

“Hey, Della. Who’re you mad at?” I shouted toward the back, since I couldn’t see her anywheres out front. I looked down to see Millie and Della’s dog, Jake, some kind of yellow hound, already tussling—their way of saying howdy.

“I’m not mad at anyone,” Della said, carrying a case of homemade jams to the front.

I’d swear in the ten year I’d known her, Della hadn’t changed a lick, but somehow that day, she looked different. It took a minute before it dawned on me she’d cut her hair to an inch or so below her ears, like she wore it when I first met her. Her hair was still that pretty reddish gold, though there were more gray streaks. But that was it. Me? I’d grown to almost six feet three inches and filled out a lot. Of course, I’d started as a kid and come June I’d be twenty-five.

 “So why did you have this note by your phone saying ASS TURD?”

“Where?” she asked, a frown crossing her face. “That’s not exactly my style of swearing, you know; I’m a little more traditional. Let me see that.” She took the paper from me and turned it over. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” 

“What?”

“A little girl named Astrid was in here earlier, and she didn’t want to tell me what the bullies at school called her. She skipped out while I was upstairs and left me a THANK YOU on this side of the paper, but I hadn’t realized she’d written something on the back. Those bullies must have skewed her name to ASS TURD.”

Oh, man, I knew what Laurel Falls bullies were like. Probably the same everywhere. And a name like Astrid was just different enough to whet their appetites. A dozen year back, they were mean about my names. As if sharing Daddy’s name of Vester (with Junior tacked on to make matters worse) weren’t bad enough, the nickname of Abit made them downright giddy. A bit slow. A bit stupid. Or a bit retarded when they really wanted to pile on. But who could blame them when my own daddy called me that? Not long after I was born, he told everyone, “He’s a bit slow” to make him feel better, letting folks know he knew his kid wasn’t as smart as most. Turned out, I learned a lot at The Hicks, and while I wasn’t much good at math and such, I’d found my groove, you might say, in wood. That was about the same time I started telling people my name was V.J. (a nickname Della came up with).

“Laurel Falls Elementary is missing a bet,” I said after thinking about ASS TURD. “You know how schools are always doing bake sales for new books or uniforms? Well, our school should set up a panel of 10-year-olds to judge the names parents wanted to give their newborn babies.” I started laughing, imagining all them kids in striped T-shirts sitting at a table, discussing the merits of any given name, all serious-like.

I could tell Della didn’t get what I was saying, so I went on. “Take the name Astrid. Her parents could’ve come to the school, paid $5 and asked the panel what would happen to the name Astrid on the playground. Those kids wouldn’t even have to think about it—ASS and TURD would’ve come to them in the blink of an eye. Or remember that guy—head of the Forest Service—Richard Everhardt? I mean, what were his parents thinking? No wonder he was so grumpy, given what he likely put up with on the playground. No question they called him Dick Neverhard. And poor Mr. Peterson, the science teacher. The kids all said …”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Della interrupted, but she was laughing. “I think you’re onto something, Mister.”

“So who is she? Surely not a customer?”

“Well, in a way she is. She came in by herself holding an old can of beans, long expired after Cleva gave it to her years ago from the Rolling Store.”

I’d ridden shotgun on the Rollin’ Store for Duane Dockery back in 1985, taking food and supplies into the backwoods for folks who couldn’t make the trek into town, a long tradition that went back a good fifty year to when the Rollin’ Store started as an open-bed truck. But that big ol’ bus got to be a drag on Della’s business after a while, and by 1990, Duane parked it for the last time behind the store. Della used it for storage after that. Too good to take to the scrap yard, she said, especially with Duane’s fine paintings of flowers and vines on the side of the bus, which still looked good after all these year.

“Okay, but why was she in here all alone?” I asked.

Della filled me in on what she knew about Astrid and her ailing mama—news she’d gotten when she called her best friend, Cleva Hall, after the little girl left. Cleva’d retired from being a teacher and principal in the county, but she still knew everything going on. “She said Astrid’s mother and father moved here some fifteen years ago to homestead, but neither one of them knew much about the land or living in the country.”

“Sounds like you,” I added, taking a big sip of the coffee she’d poured me.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, pal.” She smacked my hand as I reached for one of her chocolate chip cookies, but I knew she was just kiddin’ around. Besides, I hadn’t meant to sound mean. Della’d struggled a lot when she first bought Daddy’s store, but she’d made her way better than most—outsiders or locals.

“Anyway, Cleva said her mother wasn’t well; she got the impression it was not so much physical as mental. She’s sad all the time, won’t eat, and spends much of her time in her bedroom. The father is smart enough, according to Cleva, but there aren’t that many places to work around here; he takes what odd jobs he can find. Cleva didn’t know how they made enough money to live on, though the father may have some kind of trust fund.”

“Next time ASS TURD comes in, let me know. I’d like to meet her,” I said. “Maybe tell her how I used to be bullied—and that it gets better.”

 

 

Within a couple of days, Della called. Astrid was back for more cooking ideas. As I walked down to the store, Millie in tow, I thought about how hard Mama had worked making our meals; that was a lot to put on a little girl. 

Della introduced us, and oncet we’d said our howdy-dos, we started in like a house a fire. She petted Millie while I gave her some ideas about outsmarting them bullies and getting on with her life, though given she was only eight year old, I wasn’t sure how much “getting on” she could manage. It felt good to share my woeful tales in the hopes of helping someone else, though at some point, I started worrying all this might be too much for a little girl to carry. But she was drinking in every word, looking up at me like Millie did when I’d tell her she was a good dog.

When I was leaving, I heard Astrid tell Della to be sure to let “that boy” know next time she stopped by and added, “He has some valuable information to share.” I looked back and saw Della smiling. You couldn’t help but.

A week later, I checked with Della to see when Astrid might be coming over because I wanted to talk with her again. She had a funny look on her face when she asked, “Aren’t you a little behind in your work?”

At first I couldn’t imagine why she was talking to me that way. Then it hit. “Has Shiloh been over here telling you jokes?”

She kinda snorted. “Just left. Funny guy, that Shiloh. But he’s sure fond of patchouli, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, he loves the stuff. It took me a year to get the old cow smell out of the barn—now I’ve got that to deal with.” 

“Well, I believe I’d take eau de cow to this,” she said, fanning the air with her hand. “Which reminds me—I haven’t seen your work lately, and there’s something I want to order. When’s a good time to stop by?”

“Shiloh’s off tomorrow, so anytime. I’ll air out the place.”

I went over to Coburn’s a few more times when Astrid was there, just to see how things were going for her. I was trying to live up to that revelation I’d had while on my trip through Virginia: be kind. Something I figured came to me from Jesus, from the way he lived his life. It wasn’t that easy to do, though it was easy round Astrid. And Jake and Millie liked her, too. She was as crazy about dogs as me and Della.

It was a nice time in all our lives. I wished it could’ve stayed like that.